PLANNING
Planning makes it possible to manage the entire life cycle of a potential crisis. Strategic and operational planning establishes priorities, identifies expected levels of performance and capability requirements, provides the standard for assessing capabilities, and helps stakeholders learn their roles.
Hagerty’s professionals are adept at developing both hazard specific and multi-hazard plans for all phases of an emergency, from mitigation to response, and beyond into recovery and resilience. Engaging critical stakeholders with innovative solutions related to planning, technology, and social media allows our team to develop unique plans, specific guidance for activating these plans, and a strategy for the client’s path forward.
CAPABILITIES ASSESSMENTS
It is important to understand an organization’s capabilities related to emergency management; this is the baseline for sound planning. Hagerty’s extensive experience in devising and conducting thorough capabilities assessments assists a jurisdiction or business to determine their current risks in the event of disaster.
Additionally, capabilities assessments can help you determine your organization’s state of readiness. Every emergency, regardless of the type or scale of an incident, demands resources. Resources include personnel, supplies, and equipment. All of them are needed to effectively manage the emergency.
Hagerty takes a multi-step approach working with clients to accomplish their goals. By identifying resource needs, collecting targeted capabilities, and establishing resource gaps, our team provides recommendations about how to strategically move forward and reduce the identified gaps. The final product delivered to our clients is a comprehensive report detailing a 360-degree view with predicted needs, capabilities, shortfalls, and recommended next steps.
TRAINING AND EXERCISE DEVELOPMENT
Training and exercising are foundational activities; they ensure emergency plans are workable, complete, and understood by those tasked with implementing them. It is essential to train and exercise the people and organizations to be called upon during an emergency. Skills need to be refreshed, refined, and learned; roles need to be clearly assigned and embraced.
Exercising empowers people to make decisions and mistakes in a safe environment, and to learn from the experience. The optimal time to make strategic decisions is usually not during a crisis; but, during a crisis, decision makers must be prepared and able to act quickly. To better prepare for these times, Hagerty works with executives to develop tactical guidelines for their specific operations and organizations. All our exercises are Homeland Security Exercise & Evaluation Program (HSEEP)-compliant and many Hagerty professionals hold certifications in HSEEP or are Master Exercise Practitioners (MEPs).